License to Quill (9 page)

“No, what's the matter with
you
, Master Shakespeare? Disarmed and deprived of your dignity so easily? And by a mere woman! Oh, how your enemies must cower in fear of you!” she taunted.

“You are a devil-woman!” Shakespeare swore as he ripped his belt off her waist. “A succubus!” The woman smirked with her arms akimbo as the bard's temper cooled. “That was a waste of fine leather,” Shakespeare grumbled. He tossed the broken belt onto his bed.

“It may not be a complete waste. The night is young and full of pleasures! I'm sure we can find another way for you to embarrass yourself.”

“You made your point, Lady Percy. I will exercise better caution. Now
please
leave. It's been an unusually long day, and I don't know how many months it will be before I sleep in here again.”

“Don't worry about Bacon. As long as you visit Aston regularly, I have no doubt you two will be friends.”

“Me and Bacon?”

“No, you and Aston. Bacon thinks you're a pimp and a traitor.”

Exhausted, the bard collapsed into his chair by his desk. Outside his window, the half-moon was already dipping over the southwestern horizon. He did not need to consult his new timepiece to know that it was late. “I appreciate your concern for my well-being, Penny, but if you don't mind me asking: Why are you here? More specifically, why are you
still
here?”

Penny pulled over a second chair and produced a piece of parchment from her pants. As she crossed and uncrossed her legs, the bard noticed and just as quickly looked away from her codpiece. “I won't lie to you,” she began. “My reasons for being here are quite personal.”

“How personal?”

“Carnal.”

The bard raised his eyebrows.

As Penny was about to speak, a black raven settled on Shakespeare's windowsill, attracting the white raven nearby. The two called to each other, moved closer, and began necking. Penny smiled at the two lovers. “They mate for life. Did you know that?”

“Most people don't have a choice these days.” Shakespeare sighed from experience as he poured a cup of wine from a pewter bottle. He offered some to Penny, but she turned it down. However, she did help herself to a quill and some ink from the bard's desk, and in the process filled Shakespeare's face with her rosewater-scented breasts. “So, what's the real reason you've come calling this evening?”

“I need the names of all the men and women you've been with since the Earl of Essex debacle.”

The bard squinted his tired eyes. “Been with?”

“Made with, laid with, and died upon. The names of everyone you have slept with.”

Shakespeare sat up and stared straight into Penny's unflinching gaze. She was dead serious. “Thomas sent you, didn't he?”

“Why else do you think I'm here, Will? To make the beast with two backs?” she teased. “W wants to know who you've been consorting with since your discharge and whether you shared any sensitive information with them.”

Insulted and injured, the playwright gulped down his wine. “Where do you want to cut first?”

“Let's start with Anne. Have you made love to your wife at any time within the last three years?”

“You know we don't enjoy that kind of marriage,” he deadpanned.

“So I've heard,” Penny replied with a smirk. “But have you shared anything with her that she might have spread to some of the merry wives of Stratford she frequents?”

“No.”

Satisfied, Penny took her feather and scratched Anne Shakespeare's name from her parchment. “Viola?”

The playwright's face changed. “How do you know about her?”

Penny tried—and failed—to suppress her smile.

“Of course. Thomas,” the bard reasoned. “No, I haven't seen her in ages.”

Another name, gone. “Emilia?” she continued.

“No. At least … not anymore.” The playwright let out a soft sigh.

“Aw. My poor Will!” Penny moaned while holding her hands against her chest. “It's all right.”

“Continue,” the bard growled.

Penny struck a line through Emilia Lanier's name as well. “How about the Earl of Southampton?”

Surprised, Shakespeare sat up in his chair. “That was all a misunderstanding!”

“Ah!” she delighted. “So, you have
never
been intimate? Not once?”

“Not physically. He…” The playwright struggled under his interrogator's eager eyes. “I regret to say he became infatuated with me. He confessed his feelings, and I had to reject them. It was embarrassing for us both.”

“Well, I cannot blame him.” Penny grinned.

The bard rolled his eyes. “Is that your aim for the evening? To reopen old wounds?”

“There's just one more name, love, and then you can do with me as you want.”

“Out with it.”

“Bianca.” Penny looked up from her parchment.

The playwright froze. There was silence.

“Will? Have you been with Bianca?”

The bard clenched his jaw and made a fist with one hand. “You know her, don't you?”

“We're social,” Penny acknowledged.

“Then you know what we've been through?”

Penny nodded. The playfulness in her eyes faded, and her smile became forced.

A deep pain swept over Shakespeare's face like a veil. “Then you know I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Will, I—” Penny pleaded, reaching forward.

The bard shut his eyes and turned his head. “Please leave me.”

Her mission completed, Penny took her things and hurried out the door while the unmoving, unspeaking playwright remained at his desk. Once she was back at the crossing of Silver and Muggle, Penny turned around and looked up at the bard's window. One by one, all the fires she lit for him were extinguished.

Saddened, Penny put her fake beard back on and walked home while her white raven reluctantly returned to her post.

 

Chapter IX

The Crossing

While Lady Percy spent her morning reconnecting with an old friend, Shakespeare spent his plotting what amounted to a mental war with Guy Fawkes. It was a battle of wits the famed playwright knew he could win, but only if he took the time to appreciate his adversary no differently than any one of his villains. Fawkes was a formidable opponent with a sharp mind and strong build, the bard noted, but he was also someone who started his day just like everyone else: with a trip to the privy. As long as Fawkes continued to go about as if his trips did not stink, the advantage was Shakespeare's—and on this particular morning, it was.

After waking to church bells and changing into some fresh linens, the bard breakfasted with his landlords on cold handfuls of leftover meat pie, white manchet bread, and a pewter goblet of home-brewed beer. Their otherwise chatty tenant might have seemed somewhat quiet this morning, but the veteran actor masked this by smiling at all the right moments. Beneath his facade, the bard was weighing whether or not to seek Fawkes in person or to wait for his challenger to approach him at the Globe. The latter, he decided, granted his opponent too much power. Shakespeare wanted to surprise his adversary. Nay, he wanted to impress him. He wanted to show that he too could be brazen, especially after being bested by Fawkes at the Mermaid. Shakespeare finished his ale with the matter settled in his head: he would cross the River Thames not for Southwark but for Westminster this morning.

Shakespeare bid the Mountjoys good day and stepped onto Silver Street, where he noticed a raven take to the skies over St. Olave's church. The bard smiled. He turned left and was monitored from on high as he entered the busy intersection at St. Alban's church to the east. The raven followed from St. Alban's to St. Michael's to atop the towering Cheapside Cross monument as Shakespeare walked south on Wood Street into the Cheapside bazaar. The bard maneuvered the bustling market overflowing with sights, sounds, smells, wares, horses, hagglers, beggars, thieves, prostitutes, clowns, jugglers, jargon, gossip, and swearing, pausing only to purchase a plum from one of countless women hawking food from baskets. The bard bit into his fruit as he made his way onto Bread Street, where he crossed the same contemplative spot he had found himself on the previous day. He once more walked past the twin-finned siren outside the Mermaid on his right as well as All Hallows church on his left. He then passed Watling Street, Salters' Hall, St. Mildred's, the malodorous Pissing Alley, and the not-quite-so-foul Old Fish Street until he reached the crowded waterfront on Thames Street. His raven observed from the busy skies over Queenhithe harbor before settling beside another raven on a wooden post at Salt Wharf. Here, the waiting ravens watched their target as he passed rows of English warships—some of them veterans from the war with Spain, the bard admired—as he scanned the dockyards for something smaller to cross the Thames with.

“Ho thou!” the playwright hollered to the edge of the pier.

A grizzled waterman looked up from his antediluvian wherry. “Where you going, master?”

“Westminster,” the bard replied as he stepped onto the bobbing skiff.

“Eight pence.”

Shakespeare laughed. “Eight pence is robbery! I'll give you threepence and not a penny more.” It was the duty of every Englishman to haggle prices. Including watermen.

“Eight pence. The tide is going out.”

“And it just might take your customer with it,” the playwright cautioned in between the final bites of his juicy plum. “Threepence.”

“You want threepence? Go to Blackfriars.”

“How about I walk to Blackfriars and meet you there for a halfpenny?”

“How about you jump out of my boat and swim to Westminster?”

Parried, the slighted playwright shook his pit at the pilot. “How about I give you threepence and this stone to suck on!”

“Done.” The waterman popped the remains of Shakespeare's plum into his mouth and rowed his creaking vessel into the Thames. The bard raised his eyebrow with surprise but otherwise did not protest. He wiped his hands and noticed his raven's replacement already following him from the skies.

And so, moving westward along the Thames, surrounded by swans, ships, and more than two thousand wherries, the bard leaned into his cushioned seat and turned his thoughts back to Guy Fawkes. Within his mind's eye and ear, the pensive playwright improvised how his encounter with the man would unfold: Fawkes would greet Shakespeare, shake his hand, and likely introduce him to Thomas Percy. But then, why should Thomas Percy be there? Fawkes said the two were in a building adjacent to the House of Lords, but for what purpose? Something political? Location suggests this since it would be unusual for Fawkes and Percy to be working there otherwise. It might also explain why the two were requesting a political drama. Perhaps they were planning to sway the public and Parliamentary sentiment against … what? Witchcraft? Or perhaps this play was in protest to the new Witchcraft Act. Perhaps their intentions were noble! Nevertheless, witchcraft was still a dangerous subject for any theater to tackle, so Shakespeare would have to keep his eyes open for anything suspicious at Westminster. But again, why Westminster? Even if he inquired about their location, the bard already anticipated their excuse: they were renting the building from John Whynniard, the Keeper of the King's Wardrobe.

But … why share this? What business was it to Shakespeare who owned the building? A play is a play. It should not matter to any playwright whom a paying patron rents from. Was Fawkes trying to intimidate the bard with Whynniard's name and title? Possibly. But then, why pressure the playwright so heavily? Fawkes was already threatening Shakespeare with his knowledge about the bard's Catholic past. Why bring up John Whynniard? Was it so Shakespeare would not ask about it later?

No, the bard realized. That line about the Keeper of the King's Wardrobe was rehearsed! It was something Fawkes used to make himself sound grander. It sounded like it carried weight, but it was meaningless. It was all an illusion. Deception. A mask. Guy Fawkes was hiding something, and whatever it was, he was hiding it right under the noses of all the king's men in Parliament. But what could it be? And what did it have to do with this strange play?

Ah yes … the play. The bard smiled as his boat dipped south and his thoughts turned to his role in this drama.

Shakespeare knew there would be no rush for him to write Fawkes's play. In truth, he might never even write it if Fawkes was indeed plotting something illegal. But then again, the bard liked a challenge. Surely he could set an interesting story in Scotland. He would have to consult Holinshed's
Chronicles
when he got home, but he had no doubt he could find something worthwhile in the annals of Scottish history. After all, Fawkes was right. Witchcraft would be a good draw. All the bard had to do was accept his commission.

Shakespeare stroked his beard. How would he do it? How should he accept Fawkes's offer?

I accept your offer
. The bard gestured. But then he narrowed his eyes.
Also, do not threaten me ever again
.

Threaten you? Ha!
The bard imagined Guy Fawkes would laugh. Of course he would deny it. That would make Shakespeare appear weak and timid for suggesting it.
You must be mistaken.

No. The bard needed to start with something more tantalizing. Something that would pique Fawkes's interest.

I accept your offer
, he tested.
Also, I have one request.

He expected a different response from his opponent this time.
What would that be?

Shakespeare put his gloved hand on Fawkes's shoulder.
If I can be of any other assistance, brother, please let me know.

That was it!

Guy Fawkes knew the truth about Shakespeare's family, or at least some of it. It was well known that the bard's native Warwickshire had been a hotbed for Catholics. The Jesuit priest Edmund Campion blanketed the region with Catholic texts before he was hanged, drawn and quartered—texts such as the pamphlet young Will's father, John Shakespeare, had kept hidden in Stratford.
*
The bard's mother was cousin to the same Edward Arden who was executed for plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth.
†
The bard was wed to a three-months-pregnant Anne Hathaway at Temple Grafton by John Frith, “an old priest and Unsound in religion”—i.e. a Catholic—to appease both their families.
‡
Whatever Fawkes knew, it was enough for him to believe he could threaten Shakespeare with it. Or more specifically, it was something Fawkes would have found threatening himself. Why?